The south had a large advantage straight out of the gate because of their interior lines making it possible to provision troops very quickly. But too much productive power was centralized in the north, so as long as the north could maintain the political will to continue, the south would have eventually collapsed regardless. These white supremacist historians go through the motivated reason of clinging to early victories and advantages because it serves as propaganda of white superiority prior to Lincoln “becoming a race traitor and dividing the race”.

The confederacy saw themselves as the cultural inheritors of the founders’ legacy, with the civil war being the Second American Revolution against tyranny. Ironically, had they not fought for states’ rights to enable slavery, the states might have maintained significantly more autonomy. The Civil War changed the way US dwellers spoke about the country. Before the Civil War, the phrase was “These United States are…”, whereas after the phrase became, “The United States is….”. The federal government gained a lot of authority and resolved a contradiction in order to continue existing that it wouldn’t have otherwise bothered with. It’s really crazy how much the war kickstarted the (partial) abolition of slavery. There’s plenty of argument about whether it would have eventually died out on its own. But it’s hard to argue against how states being unwilling to compromise on their own immediate interests laid the contradictions bare, sparked the whole thing, and forced the government to at least partially resolve those contradictions or risk ceasing to exist.

It makes me hopeful that we see this pattern again and again. Capital is a parasite that can’t help but undermine its own food source. There will always be more opportunities for revolution, so as long as we continue to learn and adapt, we will win.